A sceptical eye on Bear in our bush

I only ask because this week the pint-sized action man was down in the South Island for the first episode of the new season Man vs Wild (Wednesdays, 8.30pm, Discovery) and, well, if there's something we take a pretty dim view of here in New Zealand it's bloody tourists using our bush as some sort of picturesque dunny. Who do they think they are, etc etc?

Of course, we have no idea about what Mr Grylls actually does in this department. It is one of the great mysteries of a show which for seven series now has shown in minute detail the Great Survivor surviving everything Nature has to throw at him, with the exception of telling us what he does when Nature calls.

What we have actually seen over the years is Bear getting into the shit in the woods, at least apparently. I say apparently because I sat down to watch him gadding about in South Island armed with a fair degree of scepticism about how much trouble he could really get himself into on the Mainland. Anyone who has gone tramping in the New Zealand bush, and I have, knows that really the only enemy is the weather.

Also, there's didymo, though mostly it's the weather, which is responsible for engorged rivers, hypothermia and sodden boots.

But Bear likes to make life much more difficult than just having wet socks so that, if nothing else, it makes good TV. This would be why, instead of having a nice helicopter drop him off in Mt Aspiring National Park, he opted for a "low-level tactical insertion". And no, this isn't what it sounds like. It's parachuting out of a low flying aircraft.

Once on the ground, he made it even more difficult for himself by risking a limb by going down a narrow river gorge, risking a limb by jumping into pools, risking a limb by climbing up a high ravine and then having to rappel down a steep schist cliff to get off it, thus risking all limbs. Then he went for a walk in a swamp. In the rain.

All this, as always with Bear, was done in a mad rush with him swivelling his head about like a frightened sparrow. I can't think why: the best thing you can do on the Mainland is take your time. And no need to head-swivel: the only Bear in the bush was him. I have to say I thought his choice of route a bit suspect too. For example, while he was preparing to rappel the cliff, I'm sure I spotted an easier way down in the distance.

But like Magicians (Saturdays, 7.30pm, Prime), a new, celebrity magic game series hosted by Lenny Henry, Bear's show is a Show, one, like Magicians, featuring a bit of sleight of hand, a smidgen of misdirection and a whole lot of hamming it up for the cameras. I also wonder how his "survival" strategy of heading for the coastline on the other side of the Southern Alps gels with the standard tramping advice of staying put if you get into trouble.

Oh well. It's only television and it's nice that he came, saw, got rained on, killed a possum, ate it and declared it, more or less, horrible. Oh, and survived. Mission accomplished.

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Canvas deputy editor Greg Dixon has spent more than 20 years working as a journalist for the New Zealand Herald and North & South and Metro magazines. He has been deputy editor of Canvas since 2008 and has won awards for his writing and editing, but would have preferred a pay rise.